1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of entertainment systems and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for providing personalized supplemental programming in entertainment systems.
2. Background Information
Numerous advances have been made in recent years in the field of entertainment systems. Many providers of programming content now offer supplemental programming content designed to complement the normal/typical program information. For example, many television networks provide supplemental closed captioning of the audio information to allow people who are hearing impaired to view and enjoy the network""s programming. The closed caption information is typically provided within line 21 of the vertical blanking interval (VBI) of the television signal. Another example of supplemental programming is the Supplemental Audio Programming (SAP) that is provided by many television networks, wherein the audio content of a broadcast is provided in an alternate language, or other supplemental audio content directed to the broadcast is provided. Many entertainment systems allow the system user to enable or disable such supplemental broadcast services.
Other examples of supplemental programming exist throughout, for example, the Internet. Many of the web sites throughout the Internet, for example, provide supplemental programming information. Such information may be introduced by any of the intermediate routers between the user and the host web site. In particular, many of the Internet Service H Providers (ISP""s) sell advertising space to local businesses, wherein the advertising will be displayed to all users browsing a particular web site, or web site genre. However, the web sites that provide such supplemental programming information often rely on the uniform resource locator (URL) of the accessed web site to determine which web site is being browsed and, consequently, which supplemental information to provide. In other words, the ISP""s do not evaluate the content of the information flow between the web site and the browser to determine what supplemental programming information to provide. In addition, this supplemental information is not personalized. Rather, it is common to a particular genre of web sites and provided to each user of the ISP accessing a particular genre of web sites. For example, those users viewing an automotive web site are likely to receive supplemental information regarding automotive products or services offered via the web, however the same generic supplemental information is provided to all users of the web site.
Insofar as all of the supplemental programming of prior art systems is supplied by the broadcast networks or in the stream of broadcast, and that such information is not truly personalized for the recipient of such informnation, none of the prior art entertainment systems provide personalized supplemental programming to users of entertainment systems.
Thus, a need exists for a method and apparatus for providing personalized supplemental programming content.
In accordance with the teachings of the present invention, a method and apparatus for automatically providing personalized supplemental programming is provided. In a first embodiment, an apparatus comprising a first component for supplying supplemental programming, a second component operative to receive primary programming from an external source, and a processor agent coupled to the first and the second components. The processor agent being operative to evaluate the received primary programming for predetermined content criteria, and to provide appropriate ones of the supplemental programming based on the results of the evaluation.